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Social Preferences: Some Simple Tests and a New Model

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Author Info
Gary Charness (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
Matthew Rabin (University of California)

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Abstract

Departures from pure self interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of "social preferences". We conduct experiments on simple two-person and three-person games with binary choices that test these theories more directly than the array of games conventionally considered. Our experiments show strong support for the prevalence of "quasi-maximin" preferences: People sacrifice to increase the payoffs for all recipients, but especially for the lowest-payoff recipients. People are also motivated by reciprocity: While people are reluctant to sacrifice to reciprocate good or bad behavior beyond what they would sacrifice for neutral parties, they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice. Some participants are averse to getting different payoffs than others, but based on our experiments and reinterpretation of previous experiments we argue that behavior that has been presented as "difference aversion" in recent papers is actually a combination of reciprocal and quasi-maximin motivations. We formulate a model in which each player is willing to sacrifice to allocate the quasi-maximin allocation only to those players also believed to be pursuing the quasi-maximin allocation, and may sacrifice to punish unfair players.

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Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers with number 1483.

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Date of creation: 01 Aug 2000
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1483

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  1. repec:att:wimass:1919994 is not listed on IDEAS
  2. James Andreoni, 2001. "Giving According to GARP," Theory workshop papers 339, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Gary Charness & Jordi Brandts, 1998. "Hot vs. Cold: Sequential Responses and Preference Stability in Experimental Games," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series 36-98, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Matthew Rabin, 1997. "Bargaining Structure, Fairness and Efficiency," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series 1033, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  5. Adriana D. Kugler & Gilles Saint-Paul, 2004. "How Do Firing Costs Affect Worker Flows in a World with Adverse Selection?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 553-584, July. [Downloadable!]
  6. Blount, Sally, 1995. "When Social Outcomes Aren't Fair: The Effect of Causal Attributions on Preferences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 131-144, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Dufwenberg, M. & Kirchsteiger, G., 1998. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Discussion Paper 37, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Offerman, Theo & Sonnemans, Joep & Schram, Arthur, 1996. "Value Orientations, Expectations and Voluntary Contributions in Public Goods," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 817-45, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Brandts, J. & Sola, C., 1998. "Reference Points and Negative Reciprocity in Simple Sequential Games," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 425.98, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
  10. David K. Levine, 1998. "Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(3), pages 593-622, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Gary E. Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 1998. "Strategy and Equity: An ERC Analysis of the Guth-van Damme Game," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2060, David K. Levine. [Downloadable!]
  12. Matthew Rabin., 1997. "Bargaining Structure, Fairness and Efficiency," Economics Working Papers E00-280, University of California at Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  13. Theo Offerman, 1999. "Hurting hurts more than Helping helps: The Role of the Self-serving Bias," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 99-018/1, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  14. Charness, Gary & Grosskopf, Brit, 2001. "Relative payoffs and happiness: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 301-328, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Charness, Gary, 2000. "Responsibility and effort in an experimental labor market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 375-384, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Gary E. Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. W. Güth & S. Huck & W. Müller, . "The relevance of equal splits - On behavioral discontinuity in ultimatum games," Sonderforschungsbereich 373 1998-7, Humboldt Universitaet Berlin.
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